Big Bear Lake From North Shore -a plein air painting from Big Bear Lake -SOLD.

oil 8x10 inches magnify/purchase info Last month I joined my daughter, granddaughter and friends for a scrapbooking weekend at Big Bear Craft Cottage. Each day I went out to paint and played with watercolors in the evening. If you quilt, craft, scrapbook, etc., check out Big Bear Craft Cottage. This painting was from the first day when my navigation led me to the wrong house! I sat waiting for others to arrive, but when they didn't show, I got Starbucks and went off to paint. I finally did get to the right house about dinnertime. Whew! More Big Bear paintings coming up next post. The watercolor sketch below is from the weekend before, camping at Idyllwild Pine Cove. These boulders were right in our campsite. With our kids and grandkids we enjoyed hiking, fishing, horseback riding, archery and the pool. The best part was just being together enjoying nature. A short lull in the action one afternoon allowed me to sit down and sketch a bit. I hope you're enjoying your summer!

Tubes & Brushes -a painting of paint stuff in watercolor

watercolor and gouache 9x12 inches magnify/purchase Okay, here's some watercolor stuff. My camera doesn't know what to do with white paper. It looks better in person. Have I said that before?

Lily Pads -a watercolor painting

watercolor 7x10 inches magnify/purchase Painted from a photo reference. Watercolor and a bit of gouache at the end.

Bird On A Wire -a watercolor sketch

watercolor 5.5x15 inches magnify/purchase Here's a little watercolor sketch I did recently from a photo reference.

Three In The Nest - a bird's nest watercolor painting SOLD

watercolor 7x10 inches magnify/purchase For once I've painted something from nothing. Without a photo reference and no bird's nest on hand, I made it up. I used alternating layers of watercolor and masking fluid. Then I removed the masking and painted the shadows. The splatters and drips were necessary and very exciting! Bird nests make me think of families with children. This one should go to a family with three children, don't you think?

Watercolor after Deschampe

watercolor 9x12 inches magnify/purchase In June I had a serious case of the blahs while struggling with various physical ailments. I thought I should be painting, but pity-partied instead. I remember hearing the master watercolorist, Milford Zornes say once, "If you have a physical condition, don't let that stop you from painting." He was nearly blind at the time from macular degeneration, bent over his full sheet of watercolor paper and painting from memory. I have no excuse. This watercolor was done when I had little energy to be creative, but just wanted to get a brush in my hand and move some paint around. I found an old Walter Foster oil painting book in my studio and thought it would be interesting to turn an oil into a watercolor. The original oil painting is by Gabriel Deschampe.

Fruit Stand Reds & Greens

watercolor 9x12 inches magnify/purchase "The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat!" This line from an old sports show came to mind. Last watercolor posted seemed so fun and effortless, with too much confidence I ventured outside this time for more fun....NOT! The heat got to me and dried everything too fast. So the lovely fruit stand items were overworked, and the tomato became a large sinister tomato monster, overpowering everything else. Still, I thought the set up had potential, so I gave it another try (inside) another day using my first painting as reference. I shrunk the tomato, left out a few cherries and moved an onion. The painting has life, but is still more heavy handed than the last one posted. Might be the deeper color scheme.

Flower Bowl With Fruit

watercolor 9x12 inches magnify/purchase Monday the power company was working in our area so we had no electricity for most of the day. Too hot to paint outdoors, so I worked in watercolor using filtered light from a very large window. I've done very few still lifes in watercolor, so I didn't expect a fabulous result. With low expecations of how it would turn out, it felt like play. I had fun, and I'm really happy with the result after all. Funny how in painting the play looks like fun, and the work looks worked, and sometimes overworked. Hmmm.

Surrounding Red

watercolor and gouache approx. 12x9 inches magnify/purchase A break from my ledge series. I don't have a good shot of my recent ledge piece, so I offer this little watercolor in the meantime. I did this one a while back at my Wednesday night paint/talk/laugh group. I picked up the geranium and lavender at Home Depot on the way, then borrowed the pots and glass from my friend, Martha's still life collection. Why the little oil can? I aimed to combine contrasting textures: plant, ceramic, glass and metal.

Desert Romance -sold

watercolor and gouache approx. 8x8 inches magnify/purchase The wind howled and rocked the RV one afternoon. I stayed inside and used a photo reference I had taken earlier in the day. I loved how the awning pattern reflected into the shadow it cast. The two chairs and two fan palms made it romance in the desert. This is the same little trailer I painted the day before.

'Stream In The Desert

watercolor approx. 8x8 inches magnify/purchase When it was too warm in the afternoon, I cranked up the air, and painted this view while looking out my dinette window.

Lucky Flowers

watercolor and gouache approx. 9x11 inches magnify/purchase I bought flowers at a local farmer's market. Later that day, they pulled my raffle ticket and I won a huge basket of fruit, veggies, bread, nuts and a fragrant bunch of stock to add to my flowers. Lucky flowers! I nursed the bouquet along for a week. Here are the survivors barely hanging on. I liked the prospect of making a lively painting with a not so lively subject. I kept it loose and left my marks alone.

Windows, Idaho City -sold

watercolor & gouache approx 11x8 inches magnify/purchase Reading about John Singer Sargent this weekend got me in the mood for some watercolor. Not surprisingly, he produced about 900 oils. But did you know he did about 2000 watercolors? And he had no problem using some opaque paint here and there. I had fun with this, then even more fun playing with some gouache on top.

Evening At Graber Olive House

oil 6x8 inches magnifier SOLD The Graber Family has produced delicious tree ripened olives since 1894. On the property are two great gift shops and this little museum. The sun had set while I was shopping and the glow from inside the museum made for a good nocturne. I really enjoyed painting this little scene, first in watercolor and then in oil a few days later. I've been using thicker oil paint lately, which is fun too.

watercolor approx. 8x8 inches Purchase Information and Magnifier

Double Delight

watercolor 8x8 inches Click to Purchase I hadn't worked in watercolor in a while, so Wednesday night at my painting group I thought I'd tackle Carol Marine's DPW challenge: a rose. Yeah, try something really hard since I haven't done it in a while. My friend Martha told me it's a double delight after she served wine with bugs in it. She didn't mean to. What's a little extra protein? Double delight!

I've been framing to get ready for the LA County Fair. The Franken Frames Carol Marine mentioned are great. Looks like the cow wants out, though. Someday I'm going to build my own frames, but until then these work well. Also pictured, I'm using the "mirror trick" I learned from Roos' video. For an explanation, see the comments in yesterday's post.

Tulips

watercolor 13x9 inches
Click to Purchase

One evening a week I get to meet with artsy friends and make art, talk art, laugh and eat dessert. I usually want to play around with watercolors in a "not very serious" way. This is what developed on one of those nights.

Watercolor Demo

watercolor 11x15

This week has been a busy one with not much personal time for painting. Today I gave a private watercolor class for a student struggling with a painting she was doing on her own. She planned to start over, so I did a complete demo from her photo as she took notes. I tried to show her how to paint simply, capturing the essence of the scene without copying the photo.

Class Watercolor Finished

Here's my finished demonstration painting from my Monday night class. Also pictured is my student/friend, Margaret with her finished painting. You can see she's happy with how it turned out. She's wearing her sunglasses to temper her excitement. Not really. The 5500K studio lights are a bit much for her sometimes.
To finish it up we did some negative painting in the grasses, adding a few blades of grass on top, then painted the center of the flowers. To see the 4 posts showing the progression of this painting, go to labels below, click on watercolor and scroll down.

Class Watercolor Stage 3

Update from January 28th post. We enhanced the shapes of the lily pads by painting the water spaces around them, careful not to outline. We wanted to maintain the large patches of lily pads otherwise all the repetitive shapes would be about the same size. We brought the water to the color and value desired with a second layer. The reflections of branches are added, lifting paint crosswise here and there to indicate water ripples. We removed the masking fluid on the lilies and bushes to reveal several values of green. Next class we'll finish the bushes with some negative painting, add centers to the flowers, make any needed adjustments and the painting will be finished. To see the previous posts in this series, go to "labels" below and click on "watercolor", then scroll down.

Class Watercolor Stage 2

An update from my November 15th post. Much like choosing spices for a recipe, we developed a limited color palette by looking at the reference and making little mixed color swatches. A limited palette brings unity to the painting. The little color wheel indicates the pigments chosen. Both the color plan and value study will guide us along. Pictured here is the painting after our first class. The lilies were masked, then an underpainting was applied over the entire paper. The bushes at the top are done in alternating layers of paint and masking fluid, working from light to dark. In fact, all the paintings we do are painted from light to dark, building up in layers, working over the entire painting, a very traditional approach. I don't normally use mask when I paint, but for beginners and teeny things it's helpful. I hope this information is helpful to somebody out there. To see the previous stage "Thumbnails and Value Sketches" go to labels at the bottom of this post. Click on watercolor and scroll down to November 15th.